Chapter Thirty-Five
THE brOKEN GLASS ON THE TOP OF the walls keeping me in this hell glittered in the sunshine. The streams and lakes twinkled, the trees swayed gently, and the many covered open-air pathways, salas, shrubs, and flowers did their best to paint a picture of serenity and calm.
But all I felt was disgust and despair and smouldering, scorching hate.
I stood on the roof again.
My one place where I didn’t feel so trapped.
The heat from the black stone of the huge mansion warmed my bare feet, but even with the bright afternoon sun, its fire couldn’t compare to the flames in my veins.
I’d shrugged off my coat, letting it fall to the ground. I’d unbuttoned my shirt, baring just enough of my chest to the soft breeze. The metallic glint of the vitalsync core peeked out of my clothes, the lights flashing red.
I needed Rook.
Without her, the pain had returned to unbearable levels.
I hated how quickly I’d grown used to her.
To rely on her.
That wasn’t supposed to happen.
I wasn’t supposed to need anyone.
My hands balled as another flush of misery made my knees buckle.
Why the fuck wasn’t she here yet?
Why hadn’t she turned up this morning?
Anger rose.
It was easier to be angry than admit I was worried.
I should’ve gone to fetch her the moment the pain crept to crippling levels, but I’d left it too long and the thought of walking across the meadow now...I wouldn’t make it.
A noise wrenched my head to the side as the unlatched door by the tower swung open.
Claws scraped on stone as Whisper appeared from the shadows, head low, body stiff, the slightest limp as he moved toward me. My eyes narrowed on his shoulder where his glossy black pelt looked wet. The sun glimmered, turning black to scarlet.
My heart rate climbed.
The vitalsync core beeped in warning, thanks to my pulse touching that warning line.
My fists balled as pure fury flowed through me.
Fucking bastards and their fucking leash.
Motherfucking assholes for keeping me so weak and useless and burning.
I couldn’t even be concerned for the most important creature in the world to me. Couldn’t let my system feel fear or worry or panic.
“You’re hurt.” My voice came out cold and heartless, doing my best to stay conscious.
Whisper stopped beside me and dropped to his haunches. His head tipped up to stare at me. He exhaled heavily, sounding so much like an exasperated human, I forgot that he wasn’t one.
A grunt echoed in his barrel of a chest as he twisted and licked his injury.
My gaze flew to the furthest pavilion on the outskirts of the woods.
Rook.
She’d better have a good excuse for not coming.
Her absence had condemned me to yet another day of absolute misery. A day that I wouldn’t see much more of because any moment now the pain would become too much, and I’d succumb.
Gritting my teeth, I used what meagre strength I had left to bend over and stop Whisper from cleaning his wound. He hissed a little but obeyed, licking his lips free from blood.
Running a shaking finger over the shallow slice, relief filled me. “It’s not deep. You’ll be okay.”
Nudging me out of the way, he resumed his licking.
Fine, let him heal himself.
I wasn’t any use to him in my current condition.
“Who did it?” I staggered forward, holding onto the parapet as another flash of fire shot through me.
Whisper bared his teeth but kept licking.
Sweat rolled down my temples as I dug my fingernails into the rock. “Fine. Keep your secrets. However, you’ll have to fight your own battles today, I’m afraid.”
He made a soft grunting sound and came to lean against me.
My right hand stopped clawing at the stone and dropped to his head. Touching him sometimes helped. Borrowing his brutish power was sometimes the only way I stayed conscious. Scratching behind his ears, my gaze slid back to the wall trapping me in this estate of horrors.
I glowered at the sensors, cameras, locks, and barricades.
I wished I could blow them all up. Tear them apart and smash them to pieces.
A hot flash of agony had me groaning and abandoning those thoughts.
A steady buzz grew louder.
My fingers froze around Whisper’s ear as a drone appeared, its shadow drifting over me as it hovered, putting itself in a position of authority.
I bared my teeth, wishing I could shoot it down and destroy the message it was about to deliver.
“Fuck off, Marcus.” I swallowed hard as a rush of nausea warned me I was mere moments from being knocked out.
“Is that any way to talk to your nearest and dearest friend?”
I didn’t bother answering. I wouldn’t waste the last dregs of energy on him.
The drone dropped a little lower—but not too low. They’d learned to stay out of swiping distance after I’d managed to destroy a few.
Marcus’s voice crackled through the speaker. “I’ve been waiting for good news, Lucien. I’ll admit, I’m a little disappointed that you haven’t progressed.”
I grinned, wishing I had fangs as sharp as Whisper’s. “Is that why you’re punishing me so much lately? For something you think I should’ve done?”
“It’s not a punishment,” Marcus drawled, his tone smug and faintly amused. “It’s merely a correction. You’ve had that girl in your house almost every day since she arrived. Tell me, seeing as you refuse to let us have cameras inside, have you fucked her yet?”
My mind filled with images of being with her in that way. Of finding out what it would be like to kiss and touch and give in.
The idea didn’t disgust me nearly as much as it should have.
I smirked. “Why? Are you jealous?”
“I merely need to know if today is the day I can stay true to my promise.”
“What? To finally kill me?”
The drone’s speaker system hissed with white noise. “You know you mean so much to me, Lucien. It pains me that you don’t see that.”
I laughed. Marcus’s lies would never stop being funny. But then my laugh turned to a groan, and I wobbled, fighting the fog creeping over my thoughts. “Nice of you to say such things while your finger is on that little button feeding me whatever drugs keep me useless.”
“It could all stop you know.” The drone circled me. Whisper snapped his jaws, swiping with his huge paw. “All you have to do is get one of them pregnant. The moment we have confirmation of your child in someone’s belly—”
“I’m not your breeding whore.”
“—I’ll personally collect you and take you home.”
“I am home.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t.” My skin drenched in sweat as I continued to fight the burn.
“Stop being difficult. Just have a little fun and knock one of them up. How hard is that?”
“Fine.” I smirked. “Say I do...will you let me go? Will you completely forget about me and never come after me again if I get one of these trespassing rats pregnant?”
“If you work with us instead of against us. If you prove to us you’re willing to run Brimstone Industries under our guidance and do what we ask for the sake of your legacy, of course we’ll leave you alone. You may live your life however you wish.”
“Bull. Shit.”
“You always were a pain in my ass,” Marcus muttered, showing his true colours.
I chuckled around my pain. “Fuck you too.”
“This hurts me as much as it hurts you, you know.”
“Sure, it does.” I flung my hand up, delivering a vulgar finger at the drone. “Go jump off a cliff, Marcus.”
“When you wake up, meditate on your choices, Lucien.” The vitalsync core beeped as another flash of red released the final dose I’d never been able to withstand. “Either pass on your blood to a nameless child that will mean nothing to you, or continue to suffer until you obey.”
My vision went white as the pain surged, doubling, tripling—a flood of molten magma in my veins. I fell to both knees, my breath hitching, fingers clawing at the disc surgically implanted in my chest.
The drone lingered above me, watching as I fell to the side and convulsed.
Marcus sighed. “I really hope that one day you’ll behave. But until that day...suffer well.”
My eyes rolled back as sunlight broke into shards.
The last thing I saw was Whisper as he roared at the drone, leapt into the sky, and swatted it.
He smashed it against the roof.
And as he tore out the innards of the flying spy, the world folded in on itself, taking me with it, hurtling me into a volcano of pain.